The goal is doubtless a good one. Moreover, Hong Kong does indeed have a brilliant historical tradition of dynamic capitalism which is an invaluable legacy with much to teach us.
You know that capitalism is working when on the net capital, i.e. productive assets, is being accumulated. We can guess that that did not happen over the past few years. Bureaucratic inefficiency in the private sector is supposed to be kept in check by competition, but if this bureaucratic overhead is mandated by the state, or if the state manages to strangle competition, that can't happen. In this context it seems however curious to me that you see bureaucratic inefficiency as an import. Our experience interacting with HK commercial entities has been more or less the inverse: Compared to mainland counterparts, most HK entities often seem to be bureaucratic, inefficient and inflexible. Obviously every case in unique, but this impression is not just an anecdotal one. Just to cite one example, even a decade ago, opening a bank account in Hong Kong literally took 3 hours or more, whereas the time required in China was a tiny fraction thereof. A similar difference can also be observed when dealing with vendors in Hong Kong. Chinese vendors can typically be reached 24x7 and solutions to problems tend to be swiftly and flexibly found. Hong Kong vendors by contrast often keep very inflexible hours and may not be reachable at all outside of business hours.
As a side note: A similar observation might also be made regarding many of the restrictions imposed over the past three years. For example, at least until recently unvaccinated individuals could not visit HK at all. The absurdly anti-scientific HK$5000 fine for not wearing a mask OUTSIDE was (is?) also both unique and harsh. In such matters, Hong Kong has one of the most restrictive (unfree) regimes in the entire world. Needless to say, mainland China never imposed such brazenly illiberal regulations. In fact, China was one of the few places in the world where discrimination against the unvaccinated was actually declared to be illegal. Hong Kong, time to learn from China!
The goal is doubtless a good one. Moreover, Hong Kong does indeed have a brilliant historical tradition of dynamic capitalism which is an invaluable legacy with much to teach us.
You know that capitalism is working when on the net capital, i.e. productive assets, is being accumulated. We can guess that that did not happen over the past few years. Bureaucratic inefficiency in the private sector is supposed to be kept in check by competition, but if this bureaucratic overhead is mandated by the state, or if the state manages to strangle competition, that can't happen. In this context it seems however curious to me that you see bureaucratic inefficiency as an import. Our experience interacting with HK commercial entities has been more or less the inverse: Compared to mainland counterparts, most HK entities often seem to be bureaucratic, inefficient and inflexible. Obviously every case in unique, but this impression is not just an anecdotal one. Just to cite one example, even a decade ago, opening a bank account in Hong Kong literally took 3 hours or more, whereas the time required in China was a tiny fraction thereof. A similar difference can also be observed when dealing with vendors in Hong Kong. Chinese vendors can typically be reached 24x7 and solutions to problems tend to be swiftly and flexibly found. Hong Kong vendors by contrast often keep very inflexible hours and may not be reachable at all outside of business hours.
As a side note: A similar observation might also be made regarding many of the restrictions imposed over the past three years. For example, at least until recently unvaccinated individuals could not visit HK at all. The absurdly anti-scientific HK$5000 fine for not wearing a mask OUTSIDE was (is?) also both unique and harsh. In such matters, Hong Kong has one of the most restrictive (unfree) regimes in the entire world. Needless to say, mainland China never imposed such brazenly illiberal regulations. In fact, China was one of the few places in the world where discrimination against the unvaccinated was actually declared to be illegal. Hong Kong, time to learn from China!